LET  ME  FEEL 
YOUR  PULSE 

O.  Henrv 

m     * 


sr 


LET  ME   FEEL  YOUR   PULSE 


By  the  Same  Author 

* 

Strictly  Business, 

Roads  of  Destiny,  Cabbages  and  Kings, 

The  Four  Million,  The  Trimmed 

Lamp,  Heart  of  the  West, 

The  Voice    of   the  City, 

The  Gentle  Grafter, 

Options 


A   beautiful  and  inexplicable  creature  walked  across  our 

path 


'•/  .-::;..;  -v 


-  •:.;..•;•/  .- 


LL-»  I     1   IE 

FEEL  YOUR 

PULSE 

O. 


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fa 


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ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED,   INCLUDING  THAT   OF  TRANSLATION 
INTO   FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,   INCLUDING  THE   SCANDINAVIAN 


PUBLISHED  IN  THE  COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE  UNDER  THE  TITLE 
"ADVENTURES  IN  NEURASTHENIA" 


COPYRIGHT,    IQIO,    BY    INTERNATIONAL    MAGAZINE   COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    IQIO,    BY    DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    &    COMPANY 
PUBLISHED,   OCTOBER,    1910 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  beautiful   and  inexplicable  creature 
„     walked  across  our  path     .        .    Frontispiece 

Facing  page 

He  began  to  look  more  like  Napoleon  4 

He  was  so  tall  that  I  was  not  sure  he 

had  a  face      .....          10 

/  always  was  a  good  backward  jumper          16 

I  gave  the  best  imitation  I  could  of  a 
disqualified  Per  c  her  on  (  being  led 
out  of  Madison  Square  Garden  .  18 

I  threw  down  my  suit-case  and  pur 
sued  it  hot-foot  ....  24 

"What    do    you     suppose    the    doctor 

meant  by  that?"  .          •  )       •         •          36 


M735350 


LET  ME   FEEL  YOUR   PULSE 


Let  Me  Feel  Your  Pulse 

SO  I  went  to  a  doctor. 
"How  long    has     it    been     since 
you  took  any  alcohol  into  your  system  ? " 
he  asked. 

Turning  my  head  sidewise  I  answered, 
"Oh,  quite  a  while/' 

He  was  a  young  doctor,  somewhere 
between  twenty  and  forty.  He  wore 
heliotrope  socks,  but  he  looked  like 
Napoleon.  I  liked  him  immensely. 

"Now/'  said  he,  "I  am  going  to  show 
you  the  effect  of  alcohol  upon  your  cir 
culation."  I  think  it  was  "circulation" 
he  said;  it  may  have  been  "advertising." 


4       LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 

He  bared  my  left  arm  to  the  elbow, 
brought  out  a  bottle  of  whisky,  and 
gave  me  a  drink.  He  began  to  look 
more  like  Napoleon.  I  began  to  like 
him  better. 

Then  he  put  a  tight  compress  on  my 
upper  arm,  stopped  my  pulse  with  his 
fingers,  and  squeezed  a  rubber  bulb 
connected  with  an  apparatus  on  a  stand 
that  looked  like  a  thermometer.  The 
mercury  jumped  up  and  down  without 
seeming  to  stop  anywhere;  but  the 
doctor  said  it  registered  two  hundred 
and  thirty-seven  or  one  hundred  and 
sixty-five  or  some  such  number. 

"Now,"  said  he,  "you  see  what  alcohol 
does  to  the  blood-pressure." 

"It's  marvellous,"  said  I,  "but  do  you 
think  it  a  sufficient  test?  Have  one  on 


He  began  to  look  more  like  Napoleon 


LET  ME  FEEL,  YOUR  PULSE   5 

me,  and  let's  try  the  other  arm."  But, 
no! 

Then  he  grasped  my  hand.  I  thought 
I  was  doomed  and  he  was  saying 
good-bye.  But  all  he  wanted  to  do  was 
to  jab  a  needle  into  the  end  of  a  finger 
and  compare  the  red  drop  with  a  lot  of 
fifty-cent  poker-chips  that  he  had  fastened 
to  a  card. 

"It's  the  haemoglobin  test,"  he  ex 
plained.  "The  colour  of  your  blood  is 
wrong." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "I  know  it  should  be 
blue;  but  this  is  a  country  of  mix-ups. 
Some  of  my  ancestors  were  cavaliers; 
but  they  got  thick  with  some  people  on 
Nantucket  Island,  so  - 

"I  mean,"  said  the  doctor,  "that  the 
shade  of  red  is  too  light." 


6       LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 

"Oh,"  said  I,  "it's  a  case  of  matching 
instead  of  matches." 

The  doctor  then  pounded  me  severely 
in  the  region  of  the  chest.  When  he  did 
that  I  don't  know  whether  he  reminded 
me  most  of  Napoleon  or  Battling  or  Lord 
Nelson.  Then  he  looked  grave  and 
mentioned  a  string  of  grievances  that  the 
flesh  is  heir  to  —  mostly  ending  in  "itis." 
I  immediately  paid  him  fifteen  dollars 
on  account. 

"Is  or  are  it  or  some  or  any  of  them 
necessarily  fatal?"  I  asked.  I  thought 
my  connection  with  the  matter  justified 
my  manifesting  a  certain  amount  of 
interest. 

"All  of  them,"  he  answered  cheerfully. 
"But  their  progress  may  be  arrested. 
With  care  and  proper  continuous  treat- 


LET   ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE       7 

ment  you  may  live  to  be  eighty-five  or 
ninety." 

I  began  to  think  of  the  doctor's  bill. 
"Eighty-five  would  be  sufficient,  I  am 
sure,"  was  my  comment.  I  paid  him 
ten  dollars  more  on  account. 

;'The  first  thing  to  do,"  he  said,  with 
renewed  animation,  "is  to  find  a  sani 
tarium  where  you  will  get  a  complete 
rest  for  a  while  and  allow  your  nerves  to 
get  into  a  better  condition.  I  myself 
will  go  with  you  and  select  a  suitable  one." 

So  he  took  me  to  a  madhouse  in  the 
Catskills.  It  was  on  a  bare  mountain  fre 
quented  only  by  infrequent  frequenters. 
You  could  see  nothing  but  stones  and  boul 
ders,  some  patches  of  snow  and  scattered 
pine-trees.  The  young  physician  in  charge 
was  most  agreeable.  He  gave  me  a 


8       LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 

stimulant  without  applying  a  compress  to 
the  arm.  It  was  luncheon-time,  and  we 
were  invited  to  partake.  There  were 
about  twenty  inmates  at  little  tables  in 
the  dining-room.  The  young  physician 
in  charge  came  to  our  table  and  said: 
"It  is  a  custom  with  our  guests  not  to 
regard  themselves  as  patients,  but  merely 
as  tired  ladies  and  gentlemen  taking  a 
rest.  Whatever  slight  maladies  they  may 
have  are  never  alluded  to  in  conver 
sation." 

My  doctor  called  loudly  to  a  waitress 
to  bring  some  phosphoglycerate  of  lime 
hash,  dog-bread,  bromo-seltzer  pancakes, 
and  nux-vomica  tea  for  my  repast.  Then 
a  sound  arose  like  a  sudden  wind-storm 
among  pine-trees.  It  was  produced  by 
every  guest  in  the  room  whispering  loudly 


LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR   PULSE       9 

"Neurasthenia!"  —  except  one  man  with 
a  nose,  whom  I  distinctly  heard  say, 
"Chronic  alcoholism."  I  hope  to  meet 
him  again.  The  physician  in  charge 
turned  and  walked  away. 

An  hour  or  so  after  luncheon  he  con 
ducted  us  to  the  workshop  —  say  fifty 
yards  from  the  house.  Thither  the  guests 
had  been  conducted  by  the  physician  in 
charge's  understudy  and  sponge-holder 
—  a  man  with  feet  and  a  blue  sweater. 
He  was  so  tall  that  I  was  not  sure  he 
had  a  face;  but  the  Armour  Packing 
Company  would  have  been  delighted 
with  his  hands. 

"Here,"  said  the  physician  in  charge, 
"our  guests  find  relaxation  from  past 
mental  worries  by  devoting  themselves  to 
physical  labour  —  recreation,  in  reality." 


io      LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 

There  were  turning-lathes,  carpenters' 
outfits,  clay-modelling  tools,  spinning- 
wheels,  weaving-frames,  treadmills,  bass 
drums,  enlarged-crayon-portrait  appara 
tuses,  blacksmith  forges,  and  everything, 
seemingly,  that  could  interest  the  paying 
lunatic  guests  of  a  first-rate  sanitarium. 

"The  lady  making  mud-pies  in  the 
corner,"  whispered  the  physician  in 
charge,  "is  no  other  than  Lula  Luling- 
ton,  the  authoress  of  the  novel  entitled 
'Why  Love  Loves.'  What  she  is  doing 
now  is  simply  to  rest  her  mind  after  per 
forming  that  piece  of  work." 

I  had  seen  the  book.  "Why  doesn't 
she  do  it  by  writing  another  one  instead  ?" 
I  asked. 

As  you  see,  I  wasn't  as  far  gone  as  they 
thought  I  was. 


He  was  so  tall  that  I  was  not  sure  he  had  a  face 


LET   ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE      n 

''The  gentleman  pouring  water  through 
the  funnel/'  continued  the  physician  in 
charge,  "is  a  Wall  Street  broker  broken 
down  from  overwork." 

I  buttoned  my  coat. 

Others  he  pointed  out  were  architects 
playing  with  Noah's  arks,  ministers  read 
ing  Darwin's  'Theory  of  Evolution," 
lawyers  sawing  wood,  tired-out  society 
ladies  talking  Ibsen  to  the  blue-sweatered 
sponge-holder,  a  neurotic  millionaire  ly 
ing  asleep  on  the  floor,  and  a  prominent, 
artist  drawing  a  little  red  wagon  around 
the  room. 

"You  look  pretty  strong,"  said  the  phy 
sician  in  charge  to  me.  "I  think  the  best 
mental  relaxation  for  you  would  be  throw 
ing  small  boulders  over  the  mountainside 
and  then  bringing  them  up  again." 


12  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

I  was  a  hundred  yards  away  before  my 
doctor  overtook  me. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked. 

"The  matter  is,"  said  I,  "that  there 
are  no  aeroplanes  handy.  So  I  am  going 
to  merrily  and  hastily  jog  the  footpath- 
way  to  yon  station  and  catch  the  first 
unlimited-soft-coal  express  back  to  town." 

"Well,"  said  the  doctor,  "perhaps 
you  are  right.  This  seems  hardly  the 
suitable  place  for  you.  But  what  you 
need  is  rest  —  absolute  rest  and  exercise." 

That  night  I  went  to  a  hotel  in  the  city, 
and  said  to  the  clerk:  "What  I  need  is 
absolute  rest  and  exercise.  Can  you  give 
me  a  room  with  one  of  those  tall  folding- 
beds  in  it,  and  a  relay  of  bell-boys  to 
work  it  up  and  down  while  I  rest  ? " 

The  clerk  rubbed  a  speck  off  one  of 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE  13 

his  finger-nails  and  glanced  sidewise  at 
a  tall  man  in  a  white  hat  sitting  in  the 
lobby.  That  man  came  over  and  asked 
me  politely  if  I  had  seen  the  shrubbery 
at  the  west  entrance.  I  had  not,  so  he 
showed  it  to  me  and  then  looked  me  over. 

"I  thought  you  had  'em,"  he  said,  not 
unkindly,  "but  I  guess  you're  all  right. 
You'd  better  go  see  a  doctor,  old  man." 

A  week  afterward  my  doctor  tested 
my  blood-pressure  again  without  the 
preliminary  stimulant.  He  looked  to 
me  a  little  less  like  Napoleon.  And  his 
socks  were  of  a  shade  of  tan  that  did  not 
appeal  to  me. 

"What  you  need,"  he  decided,  "is 
sea  air  and  companionship." 

"Would  a  mermaid  -  '  I  began;  but 
he  slipped  on  his  professional  manner. 


14  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

"I  myself/'  he  said,  "will  take  you  to 
the  Hotel  Bonair  off  the  coast  of  Long 
Island  and  see  that  you  get  in  good  shape. 
It  is  a  quiet,  comfortable  resort  where 
you  will  soon  recuperate." 

The  Hotel  Bonair  proved  to  be  a 
nine-hundred-room  fashionable  hostelry 
on  an  island  off  the  main  shore.  Every 
body  who  did  not  dress  for  dinner  was 
shoved  into  a  side  dining-room  and  given 
only  a  terrapin-and-champagne  table 
d'hote.  The  bay  was  a  great  stamping- 
ground  for  wealthy  yachtsmen.  The 
Corsair  anchored  there  the  day  we  arrived. 
I  saw  Mr.  Morgan  standing  on  deck 
eating  a  cheese-sandwich  and  gazing 
longingly  at  the  hotel.  Still,  it  was  a 
very  inexpensive  place.  Nobody  could 
afford  to  pay  their  prices.  When  you 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE   15 

went  away  you  simply  left  your  baggage, 
stole  a  skiff,  and  beat  it  for  the  mainland 
in  the  night. 

When  I  had  been  there  one  day  I  got 
a  pad  of  monogrammed  telegraph  blanks 
at  the  clerk's  desk  and  began  to  wire  to 
all  my  friends  for  get-away  money.  My 
doctor  and  I  played  one  game  of  croquet 
on  the  golf-links  and  went  to  sleep  on 
the  lawn. 

When  we  got  back  to  town  a  thought 
seemed  to  occur  to  him  suddenly.  "  By 
the  way,"  he  asked,  "how  do  you  feel  ?" 

"Relieved  of  very  much,"  I  replied. 

Now  a  consulting  physician  is  dif 
ferent.  He  isn't  exactly  sure  whether 
he  is  to  be  paid  or  not,  and  this  uncer 
tainty  insures  you  either  the  most  careful 


16  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

or  the  most  careless  attention.  My  doc 
tor  took  me  to  see  a  consulting  physician. 
He  made  a  poor  guess  and  gave  me 
careful  attention.  I  liked  him  immensely. 
He  put  me  through  some  coordination 
exercises. 

"Have  you  a  pain  in  the  back  of  your 
head  ?"  he  asked.  I  told  him  I  had  not. 

"Shut  your  eyes,"  he  ordered,  "put 
your  feet  close  together,  and  jump  back 
ward  as  far  as  you  can." 

I  always  was  a  good  backward  jumper 
with  my  eyes  shut,  so  I  obeyed.  My 
head  struck  the  edge  of  the  bathroom 
door,  which  had  been  left  open  and 
was  only  three  feet  away.  The  doctor 
was  very  sorry.  He  had  overlooked 
the  fact  that  the  door  was  open.  He 
closed  it. 


I  always  was  a  good  backward  jumper 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE   17 

"  Now  touch  your  nose  with  your  right 
forefinger,"  he  said. 

"Where  is  it?  "I  asked. 

"On  your  face,"  said  he. 

"I  mean  my  right  forefinger,"  I  ex 
plained. 

"Oh,  excuse  me,"  said  he.  He  re 
opened  the  bathroom  door,  and  I  took 
my  finger  out  of  the  crack  of  it.  After 
I  had  performed  the  marvellous  digito- 
nasal  feat  I  said: 

"I  do  not  wish  to  deceive  you  as  to 
symptoms,  Doctor;  I  really  have  some 
thing  like  a  pain  in  the  back  of  my  head." 
He  ignored  the  symptom  and  examined 
my  heart  carefully  with  a  latest-popular- 
air-penny-in-the-slot  ear-trumpet.  I  felt 
like  a  ballad. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "gallop  like  a  horse 


i8     LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 
for    about    five     minutes     around     the 


room.' 


I  gave  the  best  imitation  I  could  of 
a  disqualified  Percheron  being  led  out  of 
Madison  Square  Garden.  Then,  with 
out  dropping  in  a  penny,  he  listened  to 
my  chest  again. 

"No  glanders  in  our  family,  Doc,"  I 
said.  The  consulting  physician  held  up 
his  forefinger  within  three  inches  of  my 
nose.  "Look  at  my  finger,"  he  com 
manded. 

"  Did  you  ever  try  Pears '  "I  began ; 
but  he  went  on  with  his  test  rapidly. 

"Now  look  across  the  bay.  At  my 
finger.  Across  the  bay.  At  my  finger. 
At  my  finger.  Across  the  bay.  Across 
the  bay.  At  my  finger.  Across  the  bay." 
This  for  about  three  minutes. 


i>£  //b  best   imitation  I  could  of  a   disqualified   Per- 
cheron  being  led  out  of  Madison  Square  Garden 


LET   ME    FEEL    YOUR    PULSE      ig 

He  explained  that  this  was  a  test  of 
the  action  of  the  brain.  It  seemed 
easy  to  me.  I  never  once  mistook  his 
finger  for  the  bay.  I'll  bet  that  if  he 
had  used  the  phrases:  "Gaze  as  it  were, 
unpreoccupied,  outward  —  or  rather  lat 
erally  —  in  the  direction  of  the  horizon, 
underlaid,  so  to  speak,  with  the  adjacent 
fluid  inlet,"  and  "Now,  returning  —  or 
rather,  in  a  manner,  withdrawing  your 
attention,  bestow  it  upon  my  upraised 
digit"  -I'll  bet,  I  say,  that  Henry 
James  himself  could  have  passed  the 
examination. 

After  asking  me  if  I  had  ever  had  a 
grand-uncle  with  curvature  of  the  spine 
or  a  cousin  with  swelled  ankles,  the  two 
doctors  retired  to  the  bathroom  and  sat 
on  the  edge  of  the  bathtub  for  their  con- 


20  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

sultation.  I  ate  an  apple,  and  gazed 
first  at  my  finger  and  then  across  the 
bay. 

The  doctors  came  out  looking  grave. 
More:  they  looked  tombstones  and  Ten- 
nessee-papers-please-copy.  They  wrote 
out  a  diet  list  to  which  I  was  to  be  re 
stricted.  It  had  everything  that  I  had 
ever  heard  of  to  eat  on  it,  except  snails. 
And  I  never  eat  a  snail  unless  it  over 
takes  me  and  bites  me  first. 

"You  must  follow  this  diet  strictly," 
said  the  doctors. 

"I'd  follow  it  a  mile  if  I  could  get  one- 
tenth  of  what's  on  it,"  I  answered. 

"Of  next  importance,"  they  went  on, 
"is  outdoor  air  and  exercise.  And  here 
is  a  prescription  that  will  be  of  great 
benefit  to  you." 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE  21 

Then  all  of  us  took  something.  They 
took  their  hats,  and  I  took  my  departure. 

I  went  to  a  druggist  and  showed  him 
the  prescription. 

"It  will  be  $2.87  for  an  ounce  bottle," 
he  said. 

"Will  you  give  me  a  piece  of  your 
wrapping  cord?"  said  I. 

I  made  a  hole  in  the  prescription,  ran 
the  cord  through  it,  tied  it  around  my 
neck,  and  tucked  it  inside.  All  of  us  have 
a  little  superstition,  and  mine  runs  to 
a  confidence  in  amulets. 

Of  course  there  was  nothing  the  mat 
ter  with  me,  but  I  was  very  ill.  I  couldn't 
work,  sleep,  eat,  or  bowl.  The  only  way 
I  could  get  any  sympathy  was  to  go 
without  shaving  for  four  days.  Even  then 
somebody  would  say:  "Old  man,  you 


22  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

look  as  hardy  as  a  pine-knot.     Been  up 
for  a  jaunt  in  the  Maine  woods,  eh?" 

Then,  suddenly,  I  remembered  that 
I  must  have  outdoor  air  and  exercise. 
So  I  went  down  south  to  John's.  John 
is  an  approximate  relative  by  verdict 
of  a  preacher  standing  with  a  little  book 
in  his  hands  in  a  bower  of  chrysanthe 
mums  while  a  hundred  thousand  people 
looked  on.  John  has  a  country  house 
seven  miles  from  Pineville.  It  is  at 
an  altitude  and  on  the  Blue  Ridge 
Mountains  in  a  state  too  dignified  to  be 
dragged  into  this  controversy.  John  is 
mica,  which  is  more  valuable  and  clearer 
than  gold.  He  met  me  at  Pineville, 
and  we  took  the  trolley-car  to  his  home. 
It  is  a  big,  neighbourless  cottage  on  a 
hill  surrounded  by  a  hundred  mountains. 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE  23 

We  got  off  at  his  little  private  station 
where  John's  family  and  Amaryllis  met 
and  greeted  us.  Amaryllis  looked  at 
me  a  trifle  anxiously. 

A  rabbit  came  bounding  across  the 
hill  between  us  and  the  house.  I  threw 
down  my  suit-case  and  pursued  it  hot 
foot.  After  I  had  run  twenty  yards  and 
seen  it  disappear,  I  sat  down  on  the  grass 
and  wept  disconsolately. 

"I  can't  catch  a  rabbit  any  more," 
I  sobbed.  "I'm  of  no  further  use  in 
the  world.  I  may  as  well  be  dead." 

"Oh,  what  is  it  —  what  is  it,  Brother 
John?"  I  heard  Amaryllis  say. 

"Nerves  a  little  unstrung,"  said  John, 
in  his  calm  way.  "Don't  worry.  Get 
up,  you  rabbit-chaser,  and  come  on  to 
the  house  before  the  biscuits  get  cold." 


24     LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 

It  was  about  twilight,  and  the  mountains 
came  up  nobly  to  Miss  Murfree's  de 
scriptions  of  them. 

Soon  after  dinner  I  announced  that 
I  believed  I  could  sleep  for  a  year  or  two, 
including  legal  holidays.  So  I  was 
shown  to  a  room  as  big  and  cool  as  a 
flower-garden,  where  there  was  a  bed 
as  broad  as  a  lawn.  Soon  afterward 
the  remainder  of  the  household  retired 
and  then  there  fell  upon  the  land  a 
silence. 

I  had  not  heard  a  silence  before  in 
years.  It  was  absolute.  I  raised  my 
self  on  my  elbow  and  listened  to  it. 
Sleep!  I  thought  that  if  I  only  could 
hear  a  star  twinkle  or  a  blade  of  grass 
sharpen  itself  I  could  compose  myself 
to  rest.  I  thought  once  that  I  heard 


/  threw  down  my  suit-case  and  pursued  it  hot-loot 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE   25 

a  sound  like  the  sail  of  a  catboat  flapping 
as  it  veered  about  in  a  breeze,  but  I 
decided  that  it  was  probably  only  a  tack 
in  the  carpet.  Still  I  listened. 

Suddenly  some  belated  little  bird 
alighted  upon  the  window-sill,  and,  in 
what  he  no  doubt  considered  sleepy  tones, 
enunciated  the  noise  generally  translated 
as  "cheep!" 

I  leaped  into  the  air. 

"Hey!  what's  the  matter  down  there  ?" 
called  John  from  his  room  above  mine. 

"Oh,  nothing,"  I  answered,  "except 
that  I  accidentally  bumped  my  head 
against  the  ceiling." 

The  next  morning  I  went  out  on  the 
porch  and  looked  at  the  mountains. 
There  were  forty-seven  of  them  in  sight. 
I  shuddered,  went  into  the  big  hall 


26    -LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 

sitting-room  of  the  house,  selected  "  Pan- 
coast's  Family  Practice  of  Medicine" 
from  a  bookcase,  and  began  to  read. 
John  came  in,  took  the  book  away  from 
me,  and  led  me  outside.  He  has  a  farm 
of  three  hundred  acres  furnished  with 
the  usual  complement  of  barns,  mules, 
peasantry,  and  harrows  with  three  front 
teeth  broken  off.  I  had  seen  such  things  in 
my  childhood,  and  my  heart  began  to  sink. 

Then  John  spoke  of  alfalfa,  and  I 
brightened  at  once.  "Oh,  yes,"  said  I, 
"wasn't  she  in  the  chorus  of--  let's 
see " 

"Green,  you  know,"  said  John,  "and 
tender,  and  you  plough  it  under  after 
the  first  season." 

"I  know,"  said  I,  "and  the  grass 
grows  over  her." 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE   27 

"Right,"  said  John.  "You  know 
something  about  farming,  after  all." 

"I  know  something  of  some  farmers," 
said  I,  "and  a  sure  scythe  will  mow 
them  down  some  day." 

On  the  way  back  to  the  house  a  beauti 
ful  and  inexplicable  creature  walked 
across  our  path.  I  stopped,  irresistibly 
fascinated,  gazing  at  it.  John  waited 
patiently,  smoking  his  cigarette.  He  is 
a  modern  farmer.  After  ten  minutes  he 
said:  "Are  you  going  to  stand  there 
looking  at  that  chicken  all  day  ?  Break 
fast  is  nearly  ready." 

"A  chicken?"  said  I. 

"A  White  Orpington  hen,  if  you  want 
to  particularize." 

"A  White  Orpington  hen  ?"  I  repeated, 
with  intense  interest.  The  fowl  walked 


28     LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE 

slowly  away  with  graceful  dignity,  and  I 
followed  like  a  child  after  the  Pied  Piper. 
Five  minutes  more  were  allowed  me^by 
John,  and  then  he  took  me  by  the  sleeve 
and  conducted  me  to  breakfast. 

After  I  had  been  there  a  week  I  began 
to  grow  alarmed.  I  was  sleeping  and 
eating  well  and  actually  beginning  to 
enjoy  life.  For  a  man  in  my  desperate 
condition  that  would  never  do.  So  I 
sneaked  down  to  the  trolley-car  station, 
took  the  car  for  Pineville,  and  went  to 
see  one  of  the  best  physicians  in  town. 
By  this  time  I  knew  exactly  what  to  do 
when  I  needed  medical  treatment.  I 
hung  my  hat  on  the  back  of  a  chair,  and 
said  rapidly: 

"  Doctor,  I  have  cirrhosis  of  the  heart, 
indurated  arteries,  neurasthenia,  neuritis, 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE   29 

acute  indigestion,  and  convalescence.  I 
am  going  to  live  on  a  strict  diet.  I  shall 
ar~o  take  a  tepid  bath  at  night  and  a 
cold  one  in  the  morning.  I  shall  endeav 
our  to  be  cheerful,  and  fix  my  mind  on 
pleasant  subjects.  In  the  way  of  drugs 
I  in  end  to  take  a  phosphorous  pill  three 
times  a  day,  preferably  after  meals, 
and  a  tonic  composed  of  the  tinctures 
of  gentian,  cinchona,  calisaya,  and  car 
damom  compound.  Into  each  teaspoon- 
ful  of  this  I  shall  mix  tincture  of  nux 
vomica,  beginning  with  one  drop  and 
increasing  it  a  drop  each  day  until  the 
maximum  dose  is  reached.  I  shall  drop 
this  with  a  medicine-dropper,  which  can 
be  procured  at  a  trifling  cost  at  any 
pharmacy.  Good  morning." 

I  took  my  hat  and  walked  out.     After 


30  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

I  had  closed  the  door  I  remembered 
something  that  I  had  forgotten  to  say. 
I  opened  it  again.  The  doctor  had 
not  moved  from  where  he  had  been  sit 
ting,  but  he  gave  a  slightly  nervous 
start  when  he  saw  me  again. 

"I  forgot  to  mention,"  said  I,  "that 
I    shall   also    take    absolute    rest    and 


exercise.'1 


After  this  consultation  I  felt  much 
better.  The  reestablishing  in  my  mind 
of  the  fact  that  I  was  hopelessly  ill  gave 
me  so  much  satisfaction  that  I  almost 
became  gloomy  again.  There  is  nothing 
more  alarming  to  a  neurasthenic  than 
to  feel  himself  growing  well  and  cheerful. 

John  looked  after  me  carefully.  After 
I  had  evinced  so  much  interest  in  his 
White  Orpington  chicken  he  tried  his 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE  31 

best  to  divert  my  mind,  and  was  par 
ticular  to  lock  his  hen-house  of  nights. 
Gradually  the  tonic  mountain  air,  the 
wholesome  food,  and  the  daily  walks 
among  the  hills  so  alleviated  my  malady 
that  I  became  utterly  wretched  and 
despondent.  I  heard  of  a  country  doctor 
who  lived  in  the  mountains  near  by. 
I  went  to  see  him  and  told  him  the  whole 
story.  He  was  a  gray-bearded  man  with 
clear,  blue,  wrinkled  eyes  in  a  home 
made  suit  of  gray  jeans. 

In  order  to  save  time  I  diagnosed  my 
case,  touched  my  nose  with  my  right 
forefinger,  struck  myself  below  the  knee 
to  make  my  foot  kick,  sounded  my  chest, 
stuck  out  my  tongue,  and  asked  him  the 
price  of  cemetery  lots  in  Pineville. 

He  lit  his  pipe  and  looked  at  me  for 


32   LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

about  three  minutes.  "Brother,"  he 
said,  after  a  while,  "you  are  in  a  mighty 
bad  way.  There's  a  chance  for  you  to 
pull  through,  but  it's  a  mighty  slim  one." 

"What  can  it  be?"  I  asked  eagerly. 
"  I  have  taken  arsenic  and  gold,  phos 
phorus,  exercise,  nux  vomica,  hydro- 
therapeutic  baths,  rest,  excitement, 
codein,  and  aromatic  spirits  of  ammonia. 
Is  there  anything  left  in  the  Phar 
macopoeia  ? " 

"Somewhere  in  these  mountains,"  said 
the  doctor,  "there's  a  plant  growing 
• —  a  flowering  plant  that'll  cure  you, 
and  it's  about  the  only  thing  that  will. 
It's  of  a  kind  that's  as  old  as  the  world ; 
but  of  late  it's  powerful  scarce  and  hard 
to  find.  You  and  I  will  have  to  hunt 
it  up.  I'm  not  engaged  in  active  practice 


LET    ME    FEEL   YOUR    PULSE      33 

now:  I'm  getting  along  in  years;  but 
I'll  take  your  case.  You'll  have  to 
come  every  day  in  the  afternoon  and  help 
me  hunt  for  this  plant  till  we  find  it. 
The  city  doctors  may  know  a  lot  about 
new  scientific  things,  but  they  don't 
know  much  about  the  cures  that  nature 
carries  around  in  her  saddle-bags." 

So  every  day  the  old  doctor  and  I 
hunted  the  cure-all  plant  among  the 
mountains  and  valleys  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 
Together  we  toiled  up  steep  heights  so 
slippery  with  fallen  autumn  leaves  that 
we  had  to  catch  every  sapling  and 
branch  within  our  reach  to  save  us  from 
falling.  We  waded  through  gorges  and 
chasms  breast-deep  with  laurel  and  ferns; 
we  followed  the  banks  of  mountain 
streams  for  miles;  we  wound  our  way 


34  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

like  Indians  through  brakes  of  pine  — 
roadside,  hillside,  riverside,  mountain 
side  we  explored  in  our  search  for  the 
miraculous  plant. 

As  the  old  doctor  said,  it  must  have 
grown  scarce  and  hard  to  find.  But  we 
followed  our  quest.  Day  by  day  we 
plumbed  the  valleys,  scaled  the  heights, 
and  tramped  the  plateaus  in  search  of 
the  miraculous  plant.  Mountain-bred, 
he  never  seemed  to  tire.  I  often  reached 
home  too  fatigued  to  do  anything  except 
fall  into  bed  and  sleep  until  morning. 
This  we  kept  up  for  a  month. 

One  evening  after  I  had  returned 
from  a  six-mile  tramp  with  the  old  doctor, 
Amaryllis  and  I  took  a  little  walk  under 
the  trees  near  the  road.  We  looked  at 
the  mountains  drawing  their  royal-purple 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE  35 

robes    around    them    for    their    night's 
repose. 

"I'm  glad  you're  well  again,"  she  said. 
"When  you  first  came  you  frightened 
me.  I  thought  you  were  really  ill." 

"Well  again!"  I  almost  shrieked.  "Do 
you  know  that  I  have  only  one  chance 
in  a  thousand  to  live  ?" 

Amaryllis  looked  at  me  in  surprise. 
"Why,"  said  she,  "you  are  as  strong  as 
one  of  the  plough-mules,  you  sleep  ten  or 
twelve  hours  every  night,  and  you  are 
eating  us  out  of  house  and  home.  What 
more  do  you  want  ? " 

"I  tell  you,"  said  I,  "that  unless  we 
find  the  magic --that  is,  the  plant  we 
are  looking  for  —  in  time,  nothing  can 
save  me.  The  doctor  tells  me  so." 

"What  doctor?" 


36  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

"  Doctor  Tatum  —  the  old  doctor  who 
lives  halfway  up  Black  Oak  Mountain. 
Do  you  know  him?" 

"I  have  known  him  since  I  was  able 
to  talk.  And  is  that  where  you  go  every 
day  —  is  it  he  who  takes  you  on  these 
long  walks  and  climbs  that  have  brought 
back  your  health  and  strength?  God 
bless  the  old  doctor." 

Just  then  the  old  doctor  himself  drove 
slowly  down  the  road  in  his  rickety  old 
buggy.  I  waved  my  hand  at  him  and 
shouted  that  I  would  be  on  hand  the  next 
day  at  the  usual  time.  He  stopped  his 
horse  and  called  to  Amaryllis  to  come 
out  to  him.  They  talked  for  five  minutes 
while  I  waited.  Then  the  old  doctor 
drove  on. 

When  we  got  to  the  house  Amaryllis 


What  do  you  suppose  the  doctor  meant  by  that  ?  " 


LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE  37 

lugged  out  an  encyclopedia  and  sought 
a  word  in  it.  "The  doctor  said,"  she  told 
me,  "that  you  needn't  call  any  more  as 
a  patient,  but  he'd  be  glad  to  see  you  any 
time  as  a  friend.  And  then  he  told  me 
to  look  up  my  name  in  the  encyclopedia 
and  tell  you  what  it  means.  It  seems 
to  be  the  name  of  a  genus  of  flowering 
plants  and  also  the  name  of  a  country 
girl  in  Theocritus  and  Vergil.  What  do 
you  suppose  the  doctor  meant  by 
that?" 

"I  know  what  he  meant,"  said  I.  "I 
know  now." 

A  word  to  a  brother  who  may  have 
come  under  the  spell  of  the  unquiet  Lady 
Neurasthenia. 

The  formula  was  true.  Even  though 
gropingly  at  times,  the  physicians  of  the 


38  LET  ME  FEEL  YOUR  PULSE 

walled  cities  had  put  their  fingers  upon 
the  specific  medicament. 

And  so  for  the  exercise  one  is  referred 
to  good  Dr.  Tatum  on  Black  Oak 
Mountain -- take  the  road  to  your  right 
at  the  Methodist  meeting-house  in  the 
pine-grove. 

Absolute  rest  and  exercise! 

What  rest  more  remedial  than  to  sit 
with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade,  and,  with  a 
sixth  sense,  read  the  wordless  Theocritan 
idyl  of  the  gold-bannered  blue  mountains 
marching  orderly  into  the  dormitories 
of  the  night  ? 

THE    END 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

T~    |Dec'64LM 


NOI/2  I'64.IO U 


LD  21A-40m-ll,'63 
(E1602slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


